Maternal health

More than 500,000 women die in pregnancy or childbirth every year – that is one every minute. 99 per cent of these deaths are in developing countries and most are preventable.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) reasserted the importance of maternal health to development. Yet slow progress in achieving MDG 5 suggests that the interventions necessary to improve maternal health and ensure that women have access to skilled birth attendance are not straightforward.

Future Health Systems partners in Bangladesh, Uganda and Afghanistan have been assessing the causes of maternal deaths in their settings and providing guidance on how these challenges might be met.

Further Reading

Rahman MH, Mosley WH, Ahmed S, Akhter HH. Does service accessibility reduce socio-economic differentials in maternity care seeking? Evidence from rural Bangladesh.  Journal of Biosocial Science. 2008; 40:19-33 Published online June 2007. doi:10.1017/S0021932007002258

Huntingdon D, Yunguo L, Ollier L and Bloom G. Improving maternal health – lessons from the basic health services project in China. DFID, 2008